The Correlation between the Concept of Evil and the Idea of God

چکیده مقاله

All arguments from evil against the existence of God, presuppose that evil is incompatible with the triple concept of God, omniscience, omnipotence, and absolute good. I claim that not only is there not such an incompatibility, but we can also find a correlation between the concept of evil and the idea of God if we analyze the concept of evil as it entails the so-called problem of evil. As I see it, the concept of evil can be used in evil arguments if and only if it is considered as a protest to a kind of deprivation from a subjective point of view. I name this concept "Subjective Evil". So, the subjective concept of evil is the true concept of evil, and by the true concept of evil I mean that only this kind of evil can be used in the forms of the problem of evil. After that, I will argue that any protest to a kind of deprivation from the first person, presuppose at least the idea of richness of that kind, if not the existence of it. All types of evils could be categorized into three kinds of deprivation; ignorance, impotence, and malevolence. So, all protests of these deprivations presuppose the idea of their opposite richness i.e., omniscience, omnipotence, and absolute good. So, the subjective concept of evil presupposes the idea of God. Because of that, it seems that the so-called problem of evil will never be solved, due to the correlation between these two concepts, subjective evil and God. In opposition to the subjective concept of evil, there is an objective one, based on it there are things that are evils in themselves, regardless anyone believes them as evil or not. From my point of view, it is the wrong concept of evil because there are no such things. Based on the distinction between subjective and objective concepts of evil I maintain that the so-called problem of evil will arise when the true concept of evil which is subjective in itself, is considered as an objective one. 

Key words: Subjective evil, Objective evil, Problem of evil, Idea of God.